Questions To Consider When Considering Home Orthodontics

Hello, I’m Dr. Grey Kantor here with Kantor Dental Group, aesthetic dentistry and implantology. Today I want to talk about dentist guided orthodontics versus orthodontics that’s not guided by a dentist.

I am in favor of orthodontics being guided by a dentist due to the fact that I am a dentist. But I think it’s very important because a dentist is taking into account the healthy your teeth, your bite, as well as the overall aesthetics in the back, your back teeth. Aesthetics do matter in your smile.

For example, let’s take a look at my smile. If you notice when you look at my smile you only see my front six teeth. The reason for that is my back teeth are constricted. I have a “square arch“. A square arch doesn’t show all of your teeth very well. In my case you can see I’m a little misalignment in the front teeth, but I also have a square arch. For my treatment, I’m widening the back teeth as you can see; do it back and forth very quickly. And I’m of course taking away the miss alignments in the front teeth. That will make it so that you see more teeth and my smile, giving it a more aesthetic smile.

But there’s more than just aesthetics, there’s the health of our teeth. My bite is also going to be extremely helped by that wider arch because I’ll have the appropriate vertical forces on all my teeth when I chew. This will reduce recession or reduce wear on my teeth. And also reduce any jaw pain that you might have. It’s a really healthy way to make us smile better.

The third thing that it helps with is tongue space. You notice, look how little space I have for my tongue here while at the end I have a lot more space for the tongue. A significant amount more going back and forth. You can see looking at the tongue space.

Tongue space is important because it enables you to sleep better. When we sleep, if we’re snoring or having sleep apnea our tongue is being pushed down our throat. A lot of times due to the constriction of our arch in our mouth. That constriction is very, puts a lot of pressure on your tongue. Shoving your tongue down your throat. We can reduce snoring and reduce the need for sleep apnea a device by widening the arch and creating more space for the tongue. I think this is one of the biggest parts of sleep apnea and snoring that we can have a big effect on through orthodontics.

A non-guided orthodontics, something that isn’t guided by a dentist, like a direct smile club. These clubs, they’re not taking into account your back teeth. Let’s look at this case here. Similar to my case, you have a constricted back arch and misaligned front teeth. Now you look, they straight in the front teeth, but you also see that the back teeth aren’t being moved at all. Let’s look at that again. So, the back teeth. Watch the back teeth not being moved at all.

So, it’s important for you to see a dentist with orthodontics not only for aesthetics but also for the health of your teeth and the room for your tongue. These are, I think, huge reasons that it’s worth the extra time and effort to go actually see a dentist to do your orthodontics.

Hopefully this helps, if you have any questions definitely call us here at Kantor Dental Group, aesthetic dentistry and implantology. We’re located in San Rafael, California. Please subscribe and if you want to press that little like button at the bottom of the video that really helps. Thanks, and have a great day.